


brightest burning star

by hotdogluke



Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-30
Updated: 2020-10-30
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:41:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27272842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hotdogluke/pseuds/hotdogluke
Summary: Or where she sang the words, "Watch me shine," during a performance months ago, and he hasn't been able to take his eyes off her since. Juke. One shot.
Relationships: Julie Molina/Luke Patterson
Comments: 27
Kudos: 474





	brightest burning star

She’s glowing. No, she’s sparkling, shining, shooting off her own rays of light like a sun in her own solar system, and he’s just the moon, reflecting that light back to her in his own sorry attempt to match her. Even as she bustles around the studio in those stupid slippers, lollipop-themed pajama pants, and t-shirt with a lame music pun on it, she’s brighter than any star he’s ever seen.

He remembers the first time they actually hugged, just a few months ago, when he apparently started glowing with the strength she gave him. If the other boys hadn’t started glowing when they touched her as well, he’d still be positive _she_ was the one glowing, and he was still just trying to do his best to reflect it.

An elbow in his ribs brings him out of his trance, and he shakes his head and blinks a few times before tearing his eyes away from Julie to look at Alex next to him on the couch. Alex raises his eyebrows, and Luke immediately looks down at his lap. Alex and Reggie have been lecturing him over and over again about how This Changes Nothing and He’s Still Dead and Julie is Off Limits. But no matter what they say, it’s not like he can just ignore the fact that every time her skin so much as brushes against his, he could swear his heart actually starts beating again.

“Alright,” Julie huffs, immediately yanking his attention back to her. She’s standing off to the side, hands on her hips, surveying her work. She hung a projector screen from the loft, insisting that they not help because they’d just mess it up (which was a fair assumption), and set up the projector above the couch. She looks at them with a sunshine-y grin. “Who’s ready for band movie night?”

“ _Finally_ ,” Reggie says from Luke’s other side. “Will you tell us what we’re watching now?”

Julie grabs the remote and turns on the projector, and the title screen of her super-secret movie appears. “It’s called _Lemonade Mouth_ ,” she says. “It’s a Disney movie about a group of high school kids who form an unlikely band and start a revolution with their music. I thought it was fitting.”

“Another Disney movie?” Luke complains, crossing his arms.

“Hey, Reggie, Alex, and I just have taste. Next week you can pick whatever movie you want,” Julie says.

“But nothing scary,” Reggie pipes up.

“We’re ghosts,” Alex deadpans to him. “ _We’re_ scary.”

“No, we’re _nice_ ghosts,” Reggie argues.

Luke rolls his eyes and whacks the back of Reggie’s head for good measure.

“Hey!” Reggie says. “Julie, Luke just hit me!”

Now Julie rolls her eyes, walking over and wiggling her way between Alex and Luke. He tries not to react too much, but he’s still not used to actually being able to feel her arm pressed against his.

“Excuse you,” Alex says to her. She shoots him another winning grin. He sighs and drapes an arm over the back of the couch behind her, flicking Luke’s ear while Julie presses play on the movie.

Luke frowns and rubs at his ear, refusing to give Alex any more attention. The guy whose ghost boyfriend nearly got their souls destroyed shouldn’t be allowed to judge him just because the girl he likes is alive. Luke would tell him that, too, if the girl in question wasn’t sitting right between them.

“Can I be in the middle next week?” Reggie asks quietly. “I like cuddle time.”

Luke looks over at him. “We don’t _have_ cuddle time.”

“Then can I switch places with you?”

“No.”

“ _Shh_ ,” Julie and Alex say.

Reggie pouts, crossing his arms and returning his focus to the movie.

By the time they’re about halfway through, Luke is starting to cramp. Even though he doesn’t care what Alex says, things between him and Julie have been…strange. Most of the time everything is fine, but then there will be tiny little moments that add to an ever-growing mountain of weird tension between them. And as strong as Luke’s feelings are for Julie, things never seem to go quite how he wants when he tries to show her. So for the first half of the movie, he’s been trying to make himself as small as possible to try not to touch Julie. But it’s a small couch, and no matter how hard he tries, their sides are still pressed together.

Just when he’s about to give up and relax his cramping muscles, Julie surprises him and he tenses up all over again. All she does is rest her head on his shoulder, but this is intentional and his mind goes on overdrive trying to figure out what it means. He glances over at her, then looks up and meets Alex’s eyes.

All Alex does is lift his arm off the back of the couch, hold his hands up as if to say “I surrender,” and then drop his arms to his sides.

Luke hesitates, glancing at Julie again, then looks away and moves his arm to the back of the couch to replace Alex’s. Julie lifts her head slightly at the movement, then moves closer and returns her head to his shoulder. Luke bites back a smile and drops his arm from the back of the couch to her shoulders and pulls her in a little tighter, leaning his cheek against her head.

“You’re such a dork,” she whispers, so quiet only he can hear it.

“Shh, I’m watching a movie,” he whispers back.

She whacks his chest, and he grins and catches her hand with his free one, and that’s how they spend the rest of the movie: his arm around her shoulders, her head on his shoulder and his cheek on her head, his thumb brushing slow circles on the back of her hand every so often in the darkness.

* * *

He poofs into her music class at school on Monday, silently taking an empty chair in the back. He watches the other kids perform the pieces they’ve worked on for the past two weeks, although he doesn’t pay much attention. He’s too distracted by Julie, who, despite being prepared to perform on her own at the Orpheum months ago, is still bouncing her leg nervously in her chair a few rows in front of him. Flynn whispers something to her in between performances, and whatever it is must calm Julie down a little because her leg-bouncing goes down to half-speed.

Still, when it’s her turn and she stands up to walk to the piano, he can see her discomfort in her too-straight spine and how tightly she’s clutching her notebook to her chest. He knows why, of course: Carrie will do just about anything to humiliate Julie in front of their class. And almost as if she can sense Julie’s building nerves, Carrie lets out a long, exaggerated yawn as Julie sits down at the piano bench. The teacher shushes Carrie, who shrugs innocently while Flynn is undoubtedly imagining her glare is shooting lasers at the back of Carrie’s head.

Julie opens her notebook on the stand and takes a breath. Even with her nerves weighing her down, she looks like she’s under a perpetual spotlight; no matter what she does or how nervous she is, she has a magnetism that draws all the attention in the room to her. She looks out at the class, and then her eyes land on him. He shoots her a grin and a thumbs-up, and her entire body seems to relax as she gives him a small smile back. Then she starts playing, her music and voice shooting out of her like rays of pure sunlight, warming the room and everyone in it, and it takes everything in him not to jump in with her. But this is _her_ performance, _her_ moment, and her time to show everyone she doesn’t need a hologram band to be amazing. More importantly, it’s time for everyone else in the room to see just how bright she can be, to see her even a fraction of the way he sees her: pure light, pulling them all out of the dark.

When the bell rings, Luke poofs to Julie’s locker to wait for her. As she walks over and sees him, she smiles a little and pulls her phone out.

“Julie, you _killed_ it!” Luke gushes.

Her small smile turns into a grin as she opens her locker and glances at him. “Thanks,” she says. She puts her notebook away and holds her phone between her shoulder and her ear so she can pull out her supplies for her next class. “You didn’t have to come, you know.”

He shrugs, biting his lip. “I like watching you perform,” he says while she readjusts her supplies into one arm and holds her phone again with her free hand. “It’s different being in the audience and not up there with you. I get the full picture of Julie Molina: _superstar_.” He splays his hands out in front of him for effect, and she laughs a little.

“I don’t know about _that_ , but I appreciate it,” she says. “But just so you know, it’s much more fun to perform when you’re next to me.”

That comment alone makes his whole body feel warm, despite the lack of blood in his veins. He swallows, but gives her another smile. “I’m honored,” he tells her, holding a hand over his heart. He could swear he feels it pounding.

“Anyway, I should get to my next class,” she says, and he hopes that’s a little disappointment he hears in her voice.

“ _Or_ …”

She narrows her eyes at him. “ _Or_ nothing. You know school comes before the band.”

“Who said anything about the band?” he asks, grinning mischievously to hopefully distract from the way his hands are shaking at his sides.

That seems to give her pause. She blinks a few times, her eyebrows raised and lips parted slightly as the response she no doubt already had prepared is rendered useless. But then she shakes her head quickly, clearing her throat.

“No,” she says. “No. School comes first.”

He frowns, scrunching up his nose. “You’re _boring_ ,” he tells her.

“If I miss more school, my dad won’t let me be in the band.”

He sighs and rolls his eyes. “ _Fine_ ,” he says. “Go to class.” Then he leans down so his face is inches away from hers. “Just try not to miss me too much.” He shoots her a grin and a wink, and then poofs out of the school.

* * *

When Julie gets home from school, Luke is ready. He poofs into the living room just as she’s walking in, and she jumps and yelps before glaring at him with a hand over her chest.

“ _Luke_ ,” she scolds. “You know I hate it when you do that!”

He laughs. “Your face was priceless!”

She glares at him and walks into the kitchen, dropping her backpack on the table. He follows her. “Where are Alex and Reggie?” she asks.

Luke shrugs. “Alex is probably with Willie. I think Reggie went with your dad to pick up Carlos from school. Are you ready to hang out now?”

She laughs a little, then opens the fridge and grabs an apple. “Is that not what we’re doing right now?”

“I mean _hang out_ , hang out.”

“Saying it twice doesn’t make a difference.”

He sighs in frustration. “I just…You know I love our band, and I love writing music and rehearsing and performing. But I’m still a ghost,” he says. “I just wanna feel like a normal teenager and have fun hanging out with the girl I—“ He catches himself and nearly has a panic attack. “The girl I feel alive with.” Not much better, but at least it wasn’t an outright confession. He bites his lip, but Julie smiles up at him softly.

“Okay,” she says. “What do you wanna do?”

He smiles at her, then disappears and reappears a few seconds later, holding up his old skateboard. “Found this up in the loft the other day,” he says. “You know how?” She shakes her head, and he grins. “I’m gonna teach you.”

It takes some convincing, mostly because she’s grossed out by the helmet and elbow- and kneepads he makes her wear. (“Your sweat is on these!” she had argued. “They’re older than you are, Jules,” he had argued back.) Then there’s the issue of her hanging out with a ghost out in public, but since the neighborhood is so quiet, nobody is even outside to see Julie talking to herself while she skateboards up and down their street.

“So what made you decide you wanted to teach me how to skateboard?” she asks as he holds one of her hands and rests his other on her waist, pushing her along on the board so she can practice her balance.

“No reason,” he replies with a shrug.

Standing on the skateboard, she’s almost as tall as him, so he doesn’t have to look down very far to see her crinkle her nose. “Uh-huh,” she says.

“What do you think my reason is, O Wise One?” he asks, letting go of her so she drifts for a few feet on her own. She wobbles a little, but otherwise she seems like a natural, with knees slightly bent to lower her center of gravity.

“I don’t know,” she says. She places a foot on the ground to stop, then turns around. “That’s why I asked.”

She tries kicking off the ground herself to get going, but she misplaces her weight and the board shoots out behind her. She stumbles forward, but Luke appears in front of her in an instant to catch her.

He swallows, unable to help smiling just slightly as he meets her wide eyes. His arms are wrapped tightly around her, and her hands are on his chest, and he’s once again very glad he doesn’t have a heartbeat that would give him away.

“I, uh…” His voice comes out a little strained, barely audible, so he clears his throat and tries again. “I just…thought you’d be good at it, I guess.”

“Apparently you were wrong,” she replies quietly.

He shakes his head, brushing a loose strand of curly hair out of her face. “We all make mistakes.”

He can see the moment her eyes flick down to his mouth before meeting his once again. Now she swallows. “Are we about to make another one?” she asks.

“Depends on your definition of a mistake.”

Just when he starts getting disappointed, thinking she’ll say it _would_ be a mistake and pull out of his arms, she surprises him again, resting a hand on the back of his neck and pulling his lips down to hers. He immediately grins and brings his hands up to her jaw, feeling for the clasp of the helmet and then unbuckling it and taking it off her head. He drops it to the ground, forgotten, and pulls her into him again, moving one hand into her hair.

She pulls away suddenly, wide-eyed, and looks around them. When she looks up at him again, her sparkling eyes and shining smile are almost blinding; if she was the sun before, now she’s a supernova.

“We, um…we should probably go somewhere people won’t see me kissing air,” she says softly, her cheeks turning his new favorite shade of pink.

He nods, committing her face in this moment to memory before bending to pick up the helmet and grabbing the forgotten skateboard a few yards away as fast as his ghost teleportation abilities will take him.

As they walk back to the house, he glances around and then takes her hand when he’s sure no one will see. Her hand shakes a little in his, but when he looks over at her, he realizes it’s because she’s practically buzzing with the nervous, giddy sort of excitement he’s been feeling around her since the day he met her. He grins, but he lets go of her hand when they walk inside. Julie says a quick, too-loud hello to her father and Carlos, and then she shoots him a not-so-subtle glare when he laughs at her. Reggie watches them from the couch with knit eyebrows.

“We’re gonna go…write songs,” Luke tells him. “Don’t bother us.”

Reggie frowns. “But—”

“We’re gonna _write songs_ , write songs,” Luke says.

Reggie’s eyes immediately widen in understanding, his mouth forming a perfect circle. Then he smiles. “About time.”

Julie, to her credit, doesn’t react even a little to the ghosts’ conversation while she listens to a story Carlos tells from school.

“Reggie understood what saying it twice meant,” Luke mutters to her when they leave the room, and she rolls her eyes.

“That’s because you’re both the same brand of idiot.”

“It’s all part of the charm.” He winks at her and opens the garage doors for her. She shoves his chest gently, but he doesn’t miss the small smile on her face. “And you fell for it, so who’s the real idiot?” he asks, following her inside and setting down the skateboard and helmet. He hears Velcro tearing as she takes off the elbow- and kneepads.

She sighs and turns to face him, shaking her head and draping her arms around his neck with another sunshine smile on her face. “Still you,” she says.

He hums thoughtfully, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her close. He wishes he could stay in this moment forever, looking into her starry eyes and feeling the warmth radiating off her. “You know what,” he decides, “I’m okay with that.”

She grins and kisses him again, and this time there’s no doubt in his mind that he’s glowing too.


End file.
